










































Two On <iAn Island 

A Summer Idyll 

Having grown weary of turmoil and strife, 

They wished “Nothing but bashing the rest of their life.” 











The Lake was hidden away in a Wilderness 









l 

Two On <iAn Island 

A Summer Idyll 


By 

MrsSTELLA (HUTCHESON) DABNEY ^ 

* 



THE SOUTHWEST PRESS 

DALLAS • • • TEXAS 

Cl'S Vs] - 



3*. 







CTk.75 

• U1 €> f\ 3 

C4Dpv/ 2s* 


Copyright, 1931 

THE SOUTHWEST PRESS, Inc. 


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it. 


PRINTED IN U. S. A. 


PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH Sc CO.. INC. 
BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 




Dedicated to 

JANE 

The Ideal Companion 



















TWO ON AN ISLAND 


ARRIVING 

IERE it was, a green mound rising from 



the blue waters of the lake, coolly aloof 
from all human contact! 

Perhaps no foot had ever pressed its rocky 
soil! The birds in summer and the deer cross¬ 
ing the frozen lake in winter were perhaps its 
only visitors till our coming, for the lake was 
hidden away in a wilderness and the island lay 
untamed on its bosom. For us, a fantastic dream 
had come true. We, who could neither swim, 
row nor canoe, had become the owners of this 
Island; a virgin island in a wild Canadian 
lake and his Majesty’s Government had hon¬ 
ored our application for it and accepted our 
modest cheque. It was called a “summer resort 
parcel” and the patent was withheld till we had 
proved our good faith by building on it, but 
this did not minimize the joy of possession. 

It had been bought sight unseen by two, who 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


to the polite disapproval of their friends, deter¬ 
mined to go wild for a season, and I, the first 
of the pair to arrive, was now at the end of a 
long and arduous journey across the continent 
to its shores. Starting out two thousand miles 
away, seven changes had brought me to a re¬ 
mote junction on the C. P. R., where I trans¬ 
ferred to the K. & P. Railroad, locally called by 
the Scotch settlers, the Keek and Poosh, which 
well describes its speed and manner of locomo¬ 
tion. It consisted of an engine, a baggage car 
and a day coach, and it jerked along from sta¬ 
tion to station as if in a state of feeble indecision 
whether to advance, retreat or give up. It 
seemed to hope, vainly, that each station was its 
last and when prodded to further effort, it 
rocked and groaned immoderately in violent 
protest. 

Inside, everything was easy and sociable. The 
portly conductor, well known up and down the 
line, greeted his friends as they got on and off, 
chatted with everybody, introduced those who 
didn’t know each other, and, in his role of 
host, forgot to take up the tickets. 

Passengers ascended and descended fre¬ 
quently, two stations apparently being the limit 
[ 6 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


of the average journey for the natives of the 
region. 

The Keek and Poosh seemed to be utilized 
chiefly for neighborhood visits. To carry a set¬ 
ting of eggs, a fresh apple pie, or a watermelon 
a piece up the road it was invaluable. Its jerks 
when in motion and its bucks when starting 
and stopping were as good for the liver as a 
game of golf or a Swedish masseur and kept 
the travelling public fit and active. 

The conductor, seeing I was ticketed for a 
distant station, asked me why I was going so 
far into the wilderness, into a place that was so 
“lonesome.” “That’s why,” I replied. He looked 
puzzled, for he was a mixer and decided that 
I was either a misanthrope or a fugitive from 
justice. 

At last my station was called. The train was 
slowing up and the conductor, thoughtfully, 
came to put off my bags of which there were 
several. My hat box, one of those round abor¬ 
tions that carry odds and ends, was on the seat 
opposite, and, unfortunately, at the moment, 
unlatched. The burly Captain seized the handle 
with great vigor and its entire contents emptied 
themselves in a shower of miscellaneous objects 
[7] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


on the floor. The aisle was strewn with cloth¬ 
ing, both intimate and casual, small boxes were 
rolling in every direction and shoes were hop¬ 
ping about uncannily in perfect rhythm with 
the erratic motion of the Keek and Poosh. 

It was an awful moment, but everybody came 
to the rescue. As the brakes gave their last de¬ 
spairing shriek, as the train came to a stop, 
everything was scooped up, soot and all, and 
jammed into the hat box, all but my bath 
powder which remained in a pallid reproachful 
mound under my seat and would have to be 
dealt with later by an angry car cleaner. 

Murmuring profuse thanks to everybody, I 
was out and on the platform. The conductor 
waved me a cheery farewell and the Keek and 
Poosh went on its panting, asthmatic way. 

I looked about me and saw the usual three 
buildings, station, blacksmith shop and general 
store and Post Office. I was going sixteen miles 
further into the wilderness and I had been 
told that a bus met the train on Tuesdays, 
Thursdays and Saturdays. This was Tuesday 
but I saw no bus. I observed that a woman with 
four children who had gotten off my train was 
also looking about. 


[8] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


A covered truck was being loaded from the 
freight platform. Beside it was standing a sal¬ 
low woman with two children, a boy and a girl. 
I went up to her. 

“Do you know anything about a bus that 
goes from here to Prestons ?” I asked. 

“This is hit,” she replied tersely, and just then 
the driver emerged from somewhere in the in¬ 
terior where he was storing things. 

“Were you expecting me?” I inquired after 
due explanation. 

“Well, yes, I were but I weren’t expecting so 
much truck,” he said, indicating a pile of rail¬ 
road irons, fence posts, sacks of lime and 
cement, in addition to two trunks and a coop 
of chickens. 

“How many passengers are there ?” he called. 

The two women with their six children 
stepped up, a young man suddenly appeared 
out of nowhere, and I modestly put in my 
claim. 

There was one regular seat in the truck up 
beside the driver and a bench in the enclosed 
freight section that would hold three—uncom¬ 
fortably. There were ten passengers to go and 
this was the only conveyance for two days! 

[9] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


“I guess I’ll have to leave some of the truck 
here,” cheerfully said Mr. Coster, piling in the 
two trunks, the chicken coop and five suitcases. 
“The children can set on them,” he said, with 
an explanatory gesture. 

I looked wistfully at the seat beside the driver 
and hoped, being a stranger, it would be offered 
to me. Far from it! The thin sallow woman 
edged up to Mr. Coster and said stolidly, “I 
guess I’ll have to set by you becus if I sets inside 
I’m liable to vomit any minute.” 

That settled that issue, and her little boy hav¬ 
ing, according to her, a tendency to the same 
liability, was hoisted up beside her. 

This left the inside bench to be divided be¬ 
tween the other mother, five children and my¬ 
self, the young man having volunteered to sit 
on a trunk. The mother took the youngest, a 
year old, in her lap and the next two sat on one 
side of her and I on the other. The two remain¬ 
ing children were poised one on a suitcase and 
one on a keg of nails. 

We started off, packed like sardines. The seat 
went lengthwise of the truck and the general 
merchandise was stored from our knees out¬ 
ward. If the cargo shifted we might be crushed 
[10] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


or, at best, lamed for life. At the first hill, the 
nail keg slipped and threw the little boy on top 
of the little girl, whose feelings were deeply 
hurt and she cried quietly for some time. Her 
mother being aloft and we in the steerage, the 
fact that she could not communicate the in¬ 
dignity, increased the pain. We righted the little 
boy who was consoled by his mother and we 
sat him on another suitcase against my feet. 

As it began to rain the curtains were fastened 
down and the truck lumbered on. 

The air became so heavy that the children 
dropped off to sleep, one by one. The tired 
mother followed suit and the young man, try¬ 
ing to keep his equilibrium on a bouncing 
trunk, and I, were the only ones awake. The 
baby’s head sank lower and lower and finally 
came to rest on my shoulder where it grew 
heavier and heavier as the mother relaxed. The 
little girl on the suitcase had nodded several 
times. Finally deciding to forget her wrongs she 
laid her head confidingly in my lap and she, 
too, slept. I was answering all the requirements 
of a Pullman berth, sleeping accommodations 
for two passengers and storage space for lug¬ 
gage of all sorts under and around me. I had 
[ii] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


come two thousand miles for this! But I was 
too tired, too compressed to resist. 

As long as we went up hill, it wasn’t so bad. 
The load of merchandise slid toward the back 
and left a small space for our feet. But suddenly 
we began to descend a long steep hill and the 
cargo took another turn and was bearing down 
upon us. The two trunks came first, followed 
by the chicken coop. The keg of nails joined in 
the assault and charged down upon our assem¬ 
bled extremities. The children woke up and 
cried. Something had to be done, so the driver 
reluctantly climbed down from his seat, roped 
off the baggage section from the passenger sec¬ 
tion and we proceeded on our way. 

The mother with four children got out at a 
farm house a mile from my destination and the 
nice smile she gave me repaid me for my numb 
shoulder and knee in which the circulation had 
all but stopped. 

Soon we drew up at the Fisherman’s Luck 
Hotel and there, for the first time, I saw Mc¬ 
Donald the carpenter, and Dunston, his assist¬ 
ant. They were waiting to take me to see the 
Island which Jane, in Rome, and I, in Texas, 
had bought on faith. Jane was still in Rome, 
[12] 



It Looked Impenetrably Green 










TWO ON AN ISLAND 


unavoidably detained for three weeks, and I 
must get first impressions for us both. 

A ride in a bouncing Ford, a row across the 
lake, and the Island lay before me! 

Its dense green wall rebuffed intrusion and 
no vestige of a trail led inward from its shore. 

We went round and round it in our row boat 
to find a place to land. It looked impenetrably 
green. Sweet fern at the edge of the lake, many 
pronged alder bushes and pussy willows droop¬ 
ing over, cedars standing upright and above 
them spruce, balsam, birch and pine rising tier 
on tier to the center of the Island. Here and 
there a feathery tamarac towered over all the 
rest. The Island had been burned over fifty 
years ago and the growth was young and dense. 
The trunks of small trees formed a thicket so 
matted that only a rabbit could penetrate it 
without puncturing his hide on the sharp little 
lower limbs which had died for lack of sun¬ 
light and felt spiteful about it. Finally, we 
found a tiny bay, choked with the debris of 
thousands of years and here, on a water-soaked 
log, we landed, hatchets in hand. We cut a trail 
inward from the shore and climbed to the top 
of a big gray boulder to spread out our plans 
[13] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


and talk about the building of the camp. 
McDonald, the head carpenter and I had been 
in correspondence for months, but this was our 
first meeting, He looked at me solemnly, ap¬ 
praisingly with his one good eye and thought 
I was too small to count. He was a tall, spare, 
hard-bitten Scotchman, a bachelor of some fifty 
summers and couldn’t be bothered with 
women’s whims. He had had the lumber for 
the house and the stone for the chimney hauled 
over the ice during the winter and piled at the 
water’s edge. He looked at my plan soberly, sus¬ 
piciously, a little superciliously. He had never 
used one before. 

“I don’t know that a ‘plon’ is necessary,” he 
said. “It may be a gude thing in the States, but 
here in the “boosh’ we juist decide on the 
measurements and go to work.” 

“But,” I asked, “how about the details?” 

With great deliberation he removed his pipe, 
looked at me with an expression of patient for¬ 
bearance and said, “We juist take them up 
when we come to them.” 

When I explained that I was going back to 
New York, shortly, and would leave the “plon” 
with him, he looked relieved. The Scotch 
[14] 



“Climbed to the Top of a Big Grey Boulder” 
















































































































































TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Canadian has a firm belief that a woman’s place 
is on the solid plane of domestic routine; he 
thinks she is out of her element in figures and 
when she concerns herself with strains and ele¬ 
vations, he wavers between kind-hearted fear 
and malicious hope that she will be hurled to 
the fall that her unwomanly stand deserves. 

I intended to stay a week, then leave the 
sound of incessant hammering behind me and 
return to a finished camp, but it was not to be. 
I found that building on an island made the 
usual hazards and aggravations of building 
seem like play. Material lacking had to be 
ordered first by mail, then begged for by tele¬ 
gram, then pleaded for by long distance tele¬ 
phone and finally sent for by truck and per¬ 
sonally conducted to the island after days, 
weeks and even months of delay. Scotch 
Canadians in the rural districts do not hurry 
and no amount of American push and energy 
moves them except to a firmer immovability; 
tomorrow is as good as today and next week is 
better still. Life is long in the “boosh”—why 
hurry ? 

We were stopping at Fisherman’s Luck 
Hotel, McDonald, Dunston, Mickleham and I. 

[15] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


The Inn was a dingy little place kept for the 
benefit of transient fishermen, who did not 
mind lumpy beds, poor food and general dis¬ 
order, if the fish were biting. If the fish weren’t 
biting, the fishermen went home. But we 
couldn’t go home, the workmen and I. We 
were signed up for the duration of the building 
and every morning we rose at six, breakfasted 
at six-thirty, got our lunch boxes and started for 
the island. Dunston’s Ford took us to the “sugar 
bush,” a forest of superb old sugar maples and 
from there an old tub conveyed us to the Island. 

Our choice of boats was limited, as the guides 
and fishermen kept the good ones in constant 
use, but Dunn, the farmer at the head of the 
lake offered us one of his homemade flat-bot¬ 
tomed craft. There were three to choose from, 
three in various stages of senile decay, but all 
boasting brave names, cut in their prows with a 
pocket-knife. They were the Lily, the Bull 
Frog and the Trout. The Lily, if you were 
quick enough and bailed fast enough, would 
make the crossing with water only to your 
ankles. The Bull Frog was so constructed that 
you had to sit with your head thrown back and 
your knees against your chest, to prevent the 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


oars from striking you on their inward stroke. 
It required skill with a single-handed, alternate 
stroke to manipulate the Bull Frog without 
cursing. The Trout, true to its name, stayed 
under water consistently and could only be used 
in a bathing suit. So we chose the Lily and 
bailed unremittingly, for we were a heavy crew. 
McDonald, tall, spare and cranky; Dunston, a 
World War soldier, grave and sedate; and 
Mickleham, weighing over two hundred 
pounds but agile as a frog, when it came to step 
dancing at night in the hydro-camps. 

The selection of a site for the camp made the 
first day of building a painful one for us all. 
Every time I decided on a spot, I would see a 
lovely pine, balsam, or spruce that would have 
to be sacrificed and we would move the build¬ 
ing site ten feet one way, twenty feet another. 
We went back and forth, back and forth over 
the ground. Once, by many moves, we had it 
almost in the lake. Then we moved it back till 
we straddled a large boulder in a manner im¬ 
possible for a carpenter to cope with. Finally, 
with a supreme effort at renunciation, I selected 
a spot, told the patient and weary workmen to 
clear a space thirty-six feet square and hew to 
[17] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


the line. I realized, alas, that the wall of a house 
couldn’t be made scalloped shaped to fit the 
trees that I wanted to save. 

How thrilling were those first June days on 
the almost impenetrable Island! Leaving the 
workmen to struggle with the plan, I would 
take young Willie Murchison and go exploring. 
I had been round the Island in a boat several 
times and had a general idea of its shape and 
size, but once on it, it seemed as large as a con¬ 
tinent. As a matter of fact, it only contained four 
or five acres, but on account of its dense growth 
and the impossibility of seeing more than a few 
feet in front, it seemed a vast and impenetrable 
forest. Using our hatchets to cut the lower 
branches of the trees and Willie’s strong arm to 
push over the dead saplings, we climbed to the 
center of the Island. Here, thirty feet higher 
than the water’s edge, we found a ridge of rock, 
a sort of backbone, which extended the length 
of the Island and in places broadened out to 
make a wide stone pathway. We called it the 
Boulevard. Later, in honor of the Roman road, 
on the Sussex Downs, we dignified it by the 
name of Stane Street. 

Down by the water, the cedars and the sweet 
fi8] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


fern formed a green border under which the 
waves lapped. The pussywillows leaned over 
and dipped their blooming sprays in the shal¬ 
low water of our little bay, from which some 
of the driftwood that choked it, had been 
cleared. A hermit thrush was singing some¬ 
where in the thicket. I saw a loon rise and, go¬ 
ing to the spot, found her nest with two big 
brown eggs. She resented the invasion of her 
island by human beings and soon deserted her 
nest and eggs. 

The loon is a strange bird of the wilderness, 
entirely given up to self-expression. Devoid of 
restraining self-consciousness, she gives way to 
her eerie cry, her mad laughter or her valkyrie 
call to the wind, as suits her mood. She is the 
weather prophet of the wilderness and is, I am 
sure, only a mother by chance. She makes no 
pretense of preparing a home for her young, 
lets her eggs fall where they may and lie in the 
mud close to the water till they are damply and 
miserably hatched. Young loons, like fishing 
worms, may like that sort of thing, but it seems 
a “dull, demned, damp” sort of start in life. 
Loons, I fear, are a vanishing race, for, in spite 
of the Canadian laws that protect these wild 
[19] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


creatures, civilization is driving them further 
and further off the map, and wilful vandals are 
shooting them for target practice. These great 
black birds, with their gray-white breasts and 
their long white ringed necks, on which their 
heads turn almost completely around, are one 
of the characteristic sights of these regions. 
They dive under the water in protest to ap¬ 
proach or familiarity, and it is a good gam¬ 
bling game to bet how far or in what direction 
a loon will come up. When he comes to the 
surface (always having lost you your bet), he 
gives his ironic cackle as if to say, “What of it 
and who cares ?” 

His cry of loneliness at night belies his cackle, 
for it is a call to his mate and is one of the 
strangest, most yearning sounds in nature. 

As long as the weather was fine, it was a 
lark to spend the day on the Island roaming 
about, picknicking, reading under the trees and 
watching the walls of the camp go up. At 
noon the workmen would build a fire on a rock 
down by the bay—never on the turf, for it is 
against the law in Canada, where the dread of 
forest fires never sleeps. Here they would make 
their tea, bringing me mine, thoughtfully, in 
its incipiency, before it had attained the black 

[20] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


richness from boiling that their British tastes 
required. 

Long before the roof was on, we had places 
of refuge from the sudden heavy showers which 
often came; hastily contrived sheds of loose 
lumber under which we sat and swapped 
American and Canadian humor, while the rain 
beat on the leaves and ran in rivulets down the 
steep path to the bay. 

Near the close of the working hours, after 
one of these sudden rains, the loons began to 
give their prophetic wind cry and the answer¬ 
ing winds began to blow. The lake became 
suddenly very rough. We were half a mile 
from shore and it was better to start at once 
than to wait. McDonald and Dunston got in 
the Lily first to steady her, I followed and the 
stone mason came last. 

Mickleham was a ponderous man, strong as 
an ox with a big head and beady eyes. He 
looked like the frog in LaFontaine’s fable just 
before his final bloat. Mickleham didn’t like 
islands and he conveyed his disapproval by his 
deep and constant gloom. As he stepped heav¬ 
ily into the boat it went down from his weight 
almost to the water’s edge. 

“I hope, folks,” he said gloomily, “y°u have 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


all made your wills for it is a far piece to that 
shore in this leaky boat.” 

“You can swim, can’t you?” asked McDon¬ 
ald. 

“Not a stroke,” said Mickleham. 

“Well,” came grimly from McDonald, “un¬ 
less you expect to float, you had better put your 
strength into that pair of oars and pull.” 

I couldn’t swim either but I was ashamed to 
confess, that one who had no aquatic accom¬ 
plishments had chosen to summer on an island, 
so I put on a bold front and hoped I looked like 
a swimmer. We started out rocking badly and 
shipping lots of water. We couldn’t make head¬ 
way against the wind and the heavily laden 
boat was laboring. Mickleham was pulling un¬ 
til the cold sweat ran down his cheeks, but the 
wind was against us and we had only one pair 
of oars. 

“Keep out of the trough,” called McDonald, 
while he and Dunston bailed furiously, to little 
avail. 

After great struggles we had rounded the 
point of the Island, but the wind was driving us 
back against the rocks. What if we had to 
spend the night on the Island, marooned in our 
M 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


wet clothes and no shelter ? I confess that pio¬ 
neering on an island in a wild Canadian lake 
lost much of its native charm at that moment, 
but just as things began to look serious, a lone 
fisherman hove in sight. McDonald hailed 
him and he came to the rescue. He had a sound 
row boat with two pairs of oars and we greeted 
him with fulsome enthusiasm for he had come 
none too soon. The Lily, half-filled with water, 
was in a dangerous condition, not to speak of 
the state of her non-swimming passengers. 

Transferring from one rocking boat to an¬ 
other in a howling windstorm was another ad¬ 
venture for a novice, but the transfer was made 
and with the oars managed skilfully by Mc¬ 
Donald and the fisherman, we were soon safe 
at the “sugar bush” with the half-sunken Lily 
in tow. There we climbed into our waiting 
Ford and arrived drenched, but triumphant, at 
the Fisherman’s Luck, where four week-end 
fishermen were swapping stories on the porch 
and the strains of “Little Brown Jug” came un¬ 
ceasingly from a cracked gramophone inside. 
But any port in a storm seems cozy and I went 
to sleep lulled by the sound of the rain outside. 


Ds] 


THE CHIMNEY 


HE most important thing in the building 



of the camp was the chimney. It was to 
be of stone, nine feet wide with a five-foot open¬ 
ing for logs. Mickleham was to build it ex¬ 
actly according to the “plon” which had been 
carefully drawn, showing details of smoke shelf, 
fire back, chimney throat, etc. I discovered 
later that Mickleham hadn’t the faintest idea 
what it was all about. In that severe latitude 
where the roar of burning logs would bring the 
greatest cheer in their glacial winters, the in¬ 
habitants know and desire only flues and stoves. 
Chimney building is a lost art and Mickleham 
had neither the will nor the intelligence to ac¬ 
quire it. His idea of building a chimney was to 
square up the stones in chunks, stack them one 
upon another in an unpleasantly dirty white 
mortar, leave a hole in the center for the smoke 
to escape and if it didn’t work as a chimney, 
“tant pis,” at least it was a sturdy pile of stones. 
The beautiful gray stones that had been gath¬ 
ered for the face of the chimney meant noth- 


[24] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


ing to him, but so much material to break up 
into chunks and fit into crannies. Many a time 
I saw his sledge hammer lifted for a smashing 
blow on one of my treasured stones. I would give 
a cry, Mickleham would drop his hammer, 
his mouth would fly open and he would stare 
at me with an expression of hopeless vacuity, 
thinking me quite mad. We never really com¬ 
municated, for I couldn’t understand him nor 
he me. When I said anything, he always said 
vacantly, “Hey?” This he repeated till finally 
a blank “Oh” indicated that he had at last 
caught a glimmer of my meaning; but it was 
only a glimmer and that spark of understand¬ 
ing he soon lost. 

The chimney was a monster that consumed 
stone by the ton. The great quantity collected 
the previous winter was soon gone. Two men 
were set to gathering more around the shores 
while two more went back and forth, back and 
forth to the mainland in the Lily for sand and 
gravel. Mr. Pete mixed the mortar and Mickle¬ 
ham set the great stones which his straining, 
sweating helpers brought. He called his force 
of five helpers “the lads” though one was in his 
late seventies and quite toothless. It was get- 
{>5] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


ting hard to find stone in the water around the 
shore and I had only to turn my back to find 
the “lads” assiduously breaking up boulders 
around the house. 

Once I went over to the mainland for an hour 
and returned to find them busy with hammer 
and crow bars disemboweling a section of my 
cherished Stane Street. Even though I ap¬ 
peared a second Pharoah telling the “lads” to 
make brick without straw and to build a pyra¬ 
mid without material, I would not yield an 
island boulder for the maw of that chimney. 
Strict commands were issued that not even a 
pebble was to be taken from the Island. The 
mainland was teeming with rocks and stone— 
white rocks, gray rocks, green rocks, black 
rocks. Breaking off from the cliffs, they had 
rolled down to the water’s edge and lay in 
masses. This is part of the great Laurentian 
range, one of the oldest and most interesting 
geologic formations in the world, and with this 
wealth of detached stone at our command, why 
tear out the vitals of our Island? By dint of 
the Boss and super-Boss system, Mickleham 
watching the “lads,” and I watching Mickle¬ 
ham, standing between him and my stone like 
[26] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


a lioness—or a mother mocking bird—we got 
the chimney up as far as the fireplace opening 
on a Friday afternoon, the afternoon of the 
windstorm. Saturday morning I opened my 
eyes to a pouring rain—a steady drenching rain 
that was going to last—and Sunday was to 
follow. 

My back ached from the hard bed, my small 
window was only half-screened and thirsty 
Canada mosquitoes were in season. Down¬ 
stairs I heard the gramophone grinding out 
‘‘Little Brown Jug, Don’t I love thee.” I had 
heard that tune constantly for five days. I felt 
an immediate urge to smash the gramophone. 
I thought of a comfortable home in the vicinity 
of New York; I thought of a bath tub and other 
conveniences. The tri-weekly stage was leaving 
in an hour for the nearest railroad station, six¬ 
teen miles off. I took it—and that’s why my 
chimney smokes. 

Emancipated as I thought I was from downy 
ease, my ten days in the wilds gave me a keener 
appreciation of breakfast trays and candles and 
I overstayed my allotted time in New York. 
When I returned my heart was palpitating with 
eagerness to see my chimney. To save three 
[27] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


hours, I telegraphed Mr. Bel jean Pete, who was 
called Bill John Peet by the Scotch and Bill by 
his familiars, to meet me on the main line, forty 
miles away from the island at the crack of 
dawn. I expected to arrive at the hotel for 
breakfast, but with the best intentions, Mr. Pete 
couldn’t always depend on his Ford, though he 
was perfectly loyal to it in thought, word and 
deed. I tumbled sleepily out of the train at 
five a. m. and waited breakfastless for two 
hours for Bill John. At seven-thirty, I found a 
queer little lunch room open and breakfasted 
on a queer cup of coffee and a suspicious look¬ 
ing slice of bread. My host insisted on adding 
bananas, but I was firm. And there, to reward 
me, was Mr. Pete, outside the door. 

“What was the trouble?” I asked. 

“Well,” said Bill John, who personifies all 
inanimate objects, “narthing in particular—he 
(with a jerk of the thumb towards the Ford) 
is just a leetle contrary this morning. He didn’t 
want to come, but I coaxed him along and he’s 
all right now.” 

I knew what the coaxing meant, but as there 
was Bill John and there was the Ford, I could 
do nothing but get in. We went very well for 
a while, but the ominous sputtering and cough- 
[28] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


ing of a tired machine began to develop, and in 
the middle of one steep hill, “he” not only re¬ 
fused to go further but began to back down the 
hill. The brake being weak, we landed, in due 
time, at the foot. Bill John got out, lifted up 
the hood and addressing the engine’s disem¬ 
bodied spirit said coaxingly, “Well, what’s the 
matter with you now ? You’ve got another one 
of them spells, have you? Well, Til fix you.” 

Like a skilled physician, he probed for the 
affected part, extracted it and put in a new one 
and wiping the grease from his hands on his 
pants, he climbed to his seat again, apologizing 
like a father for a wayward son. “He’s a mite 
cranky but he never dies on me ontirely, and 
by Gorry! I’ve never had to walk home yet. 
When I put a new part in him he picks up 
fine. Now you’ll see he’s better than he ever 
was.” 

The old Ford started with amazing pep, 
scrambling up and down the hills for a couple 
of miles, then a rumble and a cough and “he” 
began to slide down another hill. 

“He don’t like them hills,” said Bill John in 
an aside to me when we reached the foot, “he’s 
lazy this morning—but Til fix him.” 

Patiently he got out, opened the hood, 
C29] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


squinted at the goblin within and mocked him 
thus: 

“You’ve got a dirty plug again, have you? 
Well, that won’t get you off from travelling,” 
turning to me he explained, “I’ve got a box full 
of odd parts that they was throwing away at 
a gayrage and, well sir, if I hain’t used pretty 
near ever one of ’em on this car and he’s wore 
’em all out. He’s a great one! not so good to 
look at,” he said, chuckling, “but he’s reliable 
—when he’s fixed up.” 

A spare part here and a spare part there, ad¬ 
ministered every few miles, enabled us finally 
to arrive at the shore of the lake. The little 
motor boat had just been delivered from Peter- 
boro, and the measured hum of its engine was 
a relief after the Ford’s fitful spurts of energy. 
She skimmed the water so lightly in her coat 
of white paint that we christened her The Gull. 

As I approached the Island, I noticed that the 
shores near the camp looked bare and ragged, 
the low growing cedars, alders, and sweet fern 
had been cut and great holes appeared where 
rocks had been taken out. I knew what had 
happened. Mickleham and the chimney had 
devoured them!—the cannibals! I was indig¬ 
nant but silent. As I climbed the hill, I saw 
[30] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Mickleham on the roof scaffolding, laying the 
last rounds of stones, which two of the elderly 
lads were passing up to him. The chimney 
looked just as I wanted it, but over-poweringly 
big. I contemplated its rugged grayness, its 
generous proportions, with a glow of warmth 
that I expected it, later, to shed on me. Well, 
it was done and except for the pilfered rock, 
my going away hadn’t mattered so much after 
all. The carpenters were progressing nicely and 
now the masons had finished and had begun to 
take the heavy scaffolding down. Mickleham 
came down and stood in front of the chimney. 
I saw him begin to shake his head and frown. 

“What’s the matter?” I asked. 

“Well,” he said, “it may stand up and it may 
not.” 

“You don’t mean it’s going to fall—that huge 
mass of stone?” 

“It’s powerful heavy,” he said, “and some¬ 
how the opening appears to be too big for the 
iron supports I put in.” 

A long pause and much head shaking. 

“It may cave in, in the middle.” 

“What do you suggest?” I said with agonized 
dismay. 

“Hey?” 

[31] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


I repeated my question. 

“Hey?” again with a still more vacant ex¬ 
pression. 

“What do you intend to do with that chim¬ 
ney?” 

“Well, now,” he said, “a stout iron upright 
bar in the middle to hold up the arch might 
help it.” 

“But,” I ventured, “you couldn’t build a fire 
behind an iron bar.” 

“No, that’s right,” he said meditatively, “no, 
you couldn’t build a fire in it, but,” he added 
reluctantly, “it would be—er—safer. 

“Any other suggestion?” I asked, preparing 
to leap at the first sign of crumbling. 

“No,” he said, “no, I reckon not, unless you 
want to close up the opening and use a nice 
stove.” 

When we came to examine the inside of the 
chimney, we found it was innocent of any ar¬ 
chitect’s plan. The flue, which was to open in 
my room, came out under the stairs in a closet 
on the opposite side of the house. There was 
no smoke shelf, no chimney throat, no slope to 
the fireplace back. Mickleham only looked 
blank when I asked him why he had not fol- 
C32] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


lowed the carefully drawn plans. He hadn’t 
the faintest conception of what they meant and 
it was too late to do anything but make the best 
of the chimney or dynamite it. 

Without more ado, I paid Mickleham and 
bade him a lasting farewell. Then I sent for 
Mr. Pete. Though no trained mason, he had 
the glimmer of intelligence that the other 
lacked; not a glimmer, but a gleam that shone 
round him like a halo. The Ford was requi¬ 
sitioned and a hurried trip made to the station 
to get railroad irons which were put across the 
opening and supported by six inches of cement 
on each side. The flue, being quite useless and 
an additional smoke producer, was closed up. 
The inside of the fireplace was doctored and 
remedied all that was possible, with the result 
that five days out of six, my fireplace glows 
with a cheer and warmth that radiates the char¬ 
acter of Bill John. But when the north wind 
blows, the ghost of Mickleham enters in a cloud 
of smoke, every time the door is opened, and no 
amount of incantation will lay that unwelcome 
spectre with his froglike expression and his 
vacant monosyllable “hey?” 


[33] 


THE CHRISTENING 


O N the afternoon of the day that I returned 
from New York, Jane arrived from 
Rome. Her cable notifying me of her coming 
had been at Prestons for a week. Mr. Betts, 
the postmaster, explained that he hadn’t for¬ 
warded it because “there was nothing serious 
in it,” which meant that it was not a death mes¬ 
sage. 

Only telegrams that told of calamity were 
treated with any respect. I received a telegram 
of birthday greetings from my children, once, 
three days late because Mr. Betts had passed on 
it and considered it too trivial to bother with. 
He handed it to me and to allay any forebod¬ 
ings on my part, he said kindly, “It’s not im¬ 
portant—just something about ‘love from Eliza¬ 
beth, Barbara and Joan.’ ” 

I was glad to leave my chimney troubles on 
the Island and hastened to meet Jane at the 
Fisherman’s Luck, where we were to stop till 
at least one of our camps could house us. 

As the stage drew up in front of the hotel, 
[34} 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


I rejoiced to see that Jane had captured the 
seat beside the driver. There were no other 
passengers, which was lucky, because the van 
was filled with the oddest assortment of lug¬ 
gage imaginable. Jane had spent all her spare 
moments in Italy collecting furnishings for her 
camp. She would not trust these precious pos¬ 
sessions to freight shipping hazards and had 
brought them by hand, assisted by a swarm of 
porters, from Rome to Montreal. The friendly 
conductor on the K. & P. was her last assistant 
and now she was descending from the stage 
with a box of china and glass which had been 
her personal responsibility from Rome on. This 
had to be carefully deposited, right side up, 
before we could exchange greetings and I could 
tell her how overjoyed I was to have her to 
pioneer with me. Jane insists that I was so pre¬ 
occupied with chimney troubles that I hardly 
spoke to her, but this probably is one of Jane’s 
frequent exaggerations. Out of the bus poured 
packages and bundles of odd sizes, unwieldy 
shapes and surprising contents which must have 
caused much fumbling and cursing from the 
many porters who had tried to grasp and carry 
them. A bundle of rugs from Sicily, an assort- 
[35] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


ment of copper pots and jars from Sienna, a 
heavy wrought-iron door knocker and lantern 
bracket from Rome, linen from Assisi, a box of 
pictures and etchings, a Japanese dwarf pine in 
a pink majolica jar and two bottles of Italian 
liqueur. A long, neat looking bundle had a 
smart canvas cover and handles. I thought it 
was a sketching outfit, only Jane didn’t sketch 
and I saw that Mr. Coster was straining under 
its weight. 

“Those are my andirons,” said Jane, in a mat¬ 
ter-of-fact way. “Signorita made the cover for 
them.” 

I had never seen a lady travel with a pair of 
andirons before, but Jane was original as well 
as thrifty and she believed that an import in the 
hand was worth ten in the Custom House. She 
had profited by my heart-rending experience. 
We had been in Sicily together a year before, 
and I had bought copper jars and rustic chairs 
for the proposed camp, for almost nothing. I 
had also bought andirons and rugs in Spain, 
but by the time I paid packing, carting, ship¬ 
ping, storing, clearing and delivery, in addition 
to duty in both America and Canada, I could 
have bought, for the same price, museum pieces 
[36] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


of furniture and Sheffield plated andirons. Jane 
had passed unscathed through Canadian Cus¬ 
toms and the formidable tariff wall of our na¬ 
tive land had no terrors for her now. Having 
deposited her collection, she could, in the Fall, 
go over the top at Rouse’s Point, without a 
tremor. 

The landlady of the Fisherman’s Luck Hotel 
looked at Jane and her parcels and shook her 
head. (Jane’s height in contrast to mine caused 
us to be known in the region as the Big one 
and the Little one.) The hotel was full, Mrs. 
Sims said, and she couldn’t possibly put her up, 
so Jane began her first night of pioneering in 
my tiny room, piled to the ceiling with Euro¬ 
pean spoils. Having installed ourselves as best 
we could, we could wait no longer for Jane’s 
first glimpse of the Island. 

It was late afternoon. The one advantage of 
the Keek and Poosh Railroad is that it brings 
all visitors to us at the lovely hour of five-thirty, 
when the sun is getting low over the western 
cliff and reflections in the lake form an unfor¬ 
gettable picture. 

The five islands of the upper lake rose green 
as emeralds and every tree and shrub was re- 
£ 37 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


fleeted in the quiet water below. A group of 
seven loons were disporting themselves on the 
water, laughing, screaming, diving, and com¬ 
ing up yards away. The echo of their mad 
laughter came repeatedly from the opposite 
cliff and no other sound broke the stillness of 
the wilderness about us. Jane had a faraway 
look as the boat neared the Island. I didn’t 
speak to her for fear of marring her first im¬ 
pression. Jane is literary and I thought she 
was, perhaps, composing a poem. 

“Virginia,” she said presently, “have you 
thought about fire?” 

“No,” I said, “mercifully I have not.” 

“I always think of fire,” she said, as if it 
were a virtue, “and especially in a place like 
this. I have been reading about precautions 
and the first thing to do is to select a shallow 
place in the water to sit while the Island is 
burning.” She added with determination and 
a touch of dignity, “I shall select mine, to¬ 
morrow.” 

Neither of us can swim and I suppose Jane’s 
idea was that, if one sat immersed up to the 
neck and kept a wet towel on the head, one 
couldn’t scorch beyond recognition before a 
[38] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


rescuing party arrived. Feeling hurt by her 
first reaction, I suggested that she sink an easy 
chair at some safe spot in the lake and put a 
bell on it to lead her to safety but she scorned 
my levity and refused to joke. Jane has a keen 
sense of humor which does not include fire or 
any of its possible causes. Kerosene, gasoline, 
cigarettes, matches were all on her black list 
and when Mr. Dunn told her that quicklime 
sometimes got so hot that it set dry leaves on 
fire, she felt surrounded by danger on all sides. 
She resolved to use nothing but candles in her 
camp and to enter my half-finished habitation 
seemed to her a dire peril, for she claimed that 
I kept a gasoline tank under one corner, a 
kerosene tank under another, a barrel of quick¬ 
lime under a third and a keg of dynamite un¬ 
der the fourth. As I was using all these things 
in building, I couldn’t deny it, but my sur¬ 
roundings seemed to me far less perilous than 
hers when, later, she kept a six-shooter in her 
camp and let it be understood that at any sus¬ 
picious noise she would shoot. I always called 
to her, or rather shouted, at a distance of one 
hundred feet, to establish my identity beyond a 
peradventure of a doubt. 

[39] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Jane once said to John McPherson, “If you 
ever hear a shot, John, will you please come 
over to my rescue?” 

“I’ll be glad to, Miss Jane,” he said politely, 
“after I’ve heard six shots.” 

Once landed, Jane forgot all such unpleasant 
things as fire hazards and fell completely under 
the thrall of our Robinson Crusoe Island. She 
loved the curve of its shores, its dipping petti¬ 
coats of green and the shimmer of its white 
birches through the dense thicket. But above 
all, she loved the towering tamaracs—two that 
stood like sentinels at the bay—two at each end 
of the Island, waving their feathery plumes and 
russet red cones aloft, and here and there young 
ones struggling to emerge from the dense shade 
about. With a sudden harmonious decision, 
we named our kingdom. We poured a liba¬ 
tion of pure lake water on its shore and chris¬ 
tened it Tamarac Island. 


MOVING IN 


“C'VERY Saturday night Fisherman’s Luck 
' Hotel held a step dancing tournament for 
the lumber company workers, which rocked 
the building and lasted till dawn. Jane and I 
had enjoyed immensely one of these exhibi¬ 
tions in which the French Canadians excell, 
but after five wakeful nights in cramped quar¬ 
ters we dreaded the noise and tumult of an¬ 
other, and the following morning’s strain of 
“Ramona” and “Little Brown Jug.” We made 
a sudden decision. We would move into the 
camp, unfinished as it was. The roof was on, 
the floors were in, the chimney undergoing re¬ 
construction, but there were no partitions, no 
doors and twelve yawning spaces where the 
windows were to be. 

The fever of pioneering was in our blood and 
we could not wait. I had had cots and an oil 
stove sent out from Toronto. For a week’s 
camping what more could we need? So we 
moved into quarters open to the world and to 
the winds of heaven but we felt perfectly se¬ 
cure on our Island, in the midst of our peace- 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


ful secluded lake, where only the cry of the 
loon and the whip-poor-will broke the stillness 
of the night. When the carpenters left, shak¬ 
ing their heads, over two queer city women, we 
bade them good-bye serenely. And serenely 
we placed our cots side by side in the west 
corner of the building where, later on, a bed 
room would be. The house consisted of a long 
living room in front and two bed rooms and a 
kitchen behind. We went to sleep lulled by the 
croaking of the frogs in our bay and the sound 
of the waves lapping on the shore. 

All the next day we congratulated ourselves 
on our daring and hardihood. We boasted 
about it to each other, reminding ourselves 
vainglorously, how few of our friends would 
have the courage to do as we had done. The 
buying of the Island had been a cause for scoff¬ 
ing amongst them and if they had known of 
our present situation, they would have thought 
us hopelessly mad. 

But we gloated over our emancipation. We 
roamed around the Island with our hatchets 
all day and in the first glow of possession found 
new charms in every tree and bush. We planted 
for-get-me-nots and ferns along the shore of 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


our little bay and felt the tremendous exalta¬ 
tion of pioneers, self-sustaining and sufficient 
unto themselves. In our pride, we failed to 
remember that Mrs. Dunn, the farmer’s wife, 
had that morning sent over milk, eggs and a 
baked chicken on which our independence 
rested. 

As the afternoon wore on, the wind began to 
rise and it was manifest that the absence of 
doors and windows was a drawback under 
some circumstances. We drew our sweaters 
closely around us, looking pensively at the 
yawning fireplace whose supporting pillars of 
cement were still drying. 

Jane didn’t feel able to cope with the draughts 
nor the mosquitoes and anointing herself with 
citronella, she decided to go to bed at dark, 
which is nearly nine in that northern latitude. 
I took our only oil lamp into the kitchen, 
whicL was more free from draughts than the 
other co mers of the camp, and started to write 
a letter. 1 vas so soothed by the quiet about me, 
so lulled by the peace and solitude that it was 
hard for me to concentrate. I started a descrip¬ 
tion of our heavenly, peaceful day and then 
sank into a semi-conscious state of pleasant 
Us! 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


reverie, a breath-taking enjoyment of solitude. 
The wind was rising. The skeleton house was 
full of creaks and strange noises and the wind 
had rather a banshee sound as it whistled in 
and out of our windowless openings. The 
whip-poor-will gave its mournful cry and the 
loon’s yearning call to its mate sounded now 
and then above the wind. There was no rain, 
but it was getting to be a wild night and I was 
enjoying it as a child loves a story of the Bogie 
man from the security of its mother’s lap. 
Presently, added to these wild cries of nature, 
I heard a human foostep. Not outside but in 
the camp, not thirty feet away and coming 
toward me slowly and stealthily. 

But it was impossible! There had been no 
sound of oars, no lantern light on the water. I 
shook myself. It was Jane, of course, but why 
the stealthy tiptoeing and what did she have 
on her feet? The heavy muffled tread came 
nearer and nearer down the long living room. 
I called out, “J ane > is there anything the mat¬ 
ter?” There was no answer and, looking up 
from my letter, I turned and saw a man stand¬ 
ing quietly behind me. His face was very red 
and he had a wild strange look when his eyes 

[ 44 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


met mine. Either a lunatic or a drunkard, I 
thought. Through my mind rushed bitter 
thoughts of the retribution that had overtaken 
me for coming to Canada, to escape the tire¬ 
some discussion of prohibition, but summoning 
my courage, I managed to stammer, “What do 
you want?” 

“I came to see Greeta Stringer,” he said 
huskily. 

“But Greeta Stringer doesn’t live here, she 
lives on the McPherson Island.” 

“Well,” he said, shifting from one foot to 
another and eying me closely (perhaps to de¬ 
cide how best to attack), “this was the only 
light I saw on the lake.” 

With that, a gust of wind blew out the only 
light on the lake and left me standing in the 
dark with the stealthy intruder-murderer high¬ 
jacker-lunatic or whatever he was. My mind 
flashingly canvassed all these possibilities, keep¬ 
ing on the alert for any movement on his part. 
I fumbled for matches behind me while he 
explained that he thought there was only one 
inhabited island in the lake (quite true till 
yesterday), and that he was looking for Greeta, 
Mrs. McPherson’s young cook. 

[45] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Skeptical, I struck a match and escorted him 
to the wide open door frame and pointed dra¬ 
matically in the direction of the McPherson’s 
Island. With a queer backward look, he 
disappeared down the trail in the under¬ 
brush. 

“Don’t believe him,” said Jane, who had 
mutely heard the whole conversation buried 
under three blankets and a pillow and digging 
deeper every minute. “Go down to the shore 
and see if he got away.” Obediently, and I 
marvel why, I took our only flashlight and 
started alone down the path. 

Possessed by some demon of wickedness, the 
flashlight suddenly went out and left me in 
the dark surrounded by I knew not what ter¬ 
rors. I beat a hasty retreat back to the house, 
not knowing whether the marauder got away 
or was lurking in the bushes somewhere. We 
huddled into the corner where Jane was dug 
in and took counsel. 

There was nothing to do but go to bed and 
since the light attracted visitors, and we had no 
doors to keep them out, we put out the light. 
We drew our cots even closer together and tried 
to go to sleep. It was useless. After a while 
[ 4 6 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


I saw Jane get up quietly and go into the liv¬ 
ing room. 

“What is it now?” 

“A light in the woods,” she said, “a mysteri¬ 
ous strange light that flashed for a moment on 
the birches. Someone coming to the Island 
again!” 

We threw on our dressing gowns and waited, 
a defenceless pair. But there was nothing 
more. Our nerves were jumping. Together 
we went again down the path to the shore 
preferring to face our danger rather than have 
it come up behind us. Our flashlight was use¬ 
less but there was a strange visibility all about 
and the birches looked sinister and ghostly in 
its weird light. 

Why had we come to a lonely island and 
would we ever see home again ? There seemed 
to be no sign of a boat, nor glimmer of light 
on the lake, so we went back to the house and 
lay awake for a long time, bolstering up each 
other’s courage. We tried counting sheep, say¬ 
ing the twenty-third Psalm, and other com¬ 
forting things, but nothing brought sleep to 
our excited brains. Hours passed and we had 
begun to persuade each other that perhaps our 
U7] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


danger was over when a fearful crash was 
heard, a heavy body falling, then silence. This 
was too much! With chattering teeth we rose, 
dressed and waited for the dawn. 

The returning day brought our friends, the 
carpenters, and they discovered that a heavy 
ladder had fallen from the roof to the ground 
which accounted for the ominous crash we 
heard. They were told to spend that day in 
making one room secure, partitions, windows, 
doors and bolts. We found we were not the 
intrepid adventurers we thought we were and a 
bolt seemed a priceless possession to us. The 
story of our sleepless night went up and down 
the lake and through the neighborhood. 

It turned out that the marauder was in truth 
a young farmer, the affianced beau of Greeta 
Stringer. He was planning a pleasant surprise 
for her. He saw the light of our camp from 
the lake and made a noiseless landing. As he 
came up the hill he saw a woman sitting be¬ 
side the light, her back to the door. Above 
her head hung pots and pans. It was Greeta, 
of course, and so still he thought she was asleep. 
Stealing upon her, as well as he could with his 
heavy boots, he planned to put his hands over 
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TWO ON AN ISLAND 


her eyes and say, “Guess who!” If he had, I 
should have gone into a permanent coma, but 
mercifully, I turned in time, and he, seeing a 
perfectly strange woman staring wildly at him, 
was almost as frightened as I was, probably 
thinking me a banshee that had ridden in on 
the wind. 

The flickering light Jane saw in the trees 
was the Northern Lights. We saw them many 
times afterwards, a blue effulgence that lit the 
horizon and sometimes made a broad pathway 
of silver across the sky. We saw it afterwards 
with a feeling of awe at its beauty instead of the 
terror it first inspired. 

The fright of that night of terror remained 
with us for several days. Bold in the daytime 
we would smile at our fears. We would put 
our cots in separate rooms and plan an exclusive 
privacy that we both preferred; but as night 
came on, one or the other of us would be 
caught dragging her cot to a place of comfort¬ 
ing companionship beside the other. 

After several uneventful nights, our confi¬ 
dence, founded on locks and bolts, returned, 
and peace and security once more enveloped us. 


[49} 


FURNISHING AND PROVISIONING 
HE camp grew more livable day by day. 



J- Our kitchen was in working order. 
Greeta Stringer’s sister was installed as cook 
and we were beginning to think of mild lux¬ 
uries; something beyond the hard bench to sit 
on and the improvised boxes that had served 
as dressing tables. The bench, our first piece 
of furniture, we kept as a souvenir of pioneer 
days and used it for fireside chats. We called 
it the “ducking stool” for its two legs were too 
close to the center and many a time, later, a 
guest, warming herself, landed on the floor if 
she sat too far to one side. If, by any chance, 
two were sitting on it and one rose suddenly, 
the other was lucky if she fell into the wood 
box instead of the fire. But even bruised mem¬ 
bers and hurt feelings did not shake our loy¬ 
alty to the bench. It was our eldest born. 
Chairs and rough couches began to arrive by 
freight from Toronto. These, however, did 
not satisfy our creative urge. We had always 
planned to have country made furniture and 


[50] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


the McPhersons, who had camped on their 
island three summers before we came, had told 
us that the carpenters liked making these odd 
tables and stands. They consider it the cream 
of the job, and the head carpenter reserves to 
himself the privilege of doing all the furniture 
making. McDonald had strong feelings on 
the subject as I found later to my cost. As the 
summer wore on, we realized that McDonald 
didn’t like Mr. Pete. It was one of his idio¬ 
syncrasies for everybody else did. He was the 
handy man of the whole region. Bill John, 
as he was called by his familiars, was of mixed 
descent but he had enough French blood to 
give him a certain Gallic charm. He always 
wore in his hat a jaunty green feather which 
was an index to his debonair character. I think 
McDonald’s dour Scotch nature resented the 
green feather, for one thing. Then, too, Mc¬ 
Donald was uncompromising. I asked him, 
after he had set the four big beams in my ceil¬ 
ing, if he would please take a hatchet and hack 
them here and there to make them look hand 
hewn. He was so indignant at the idea that I 
withdrew the request. Mr. Pete, to please me, 
would have gladly hacked them to pieces. He 
C51] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


had a soft voice and gentle ways and this, com¬ 
bined with a shrewd knack of being able to 
turn his hand to anything, made him invaluable 
to the community. Bill John was not a spe¬ 
cialist, though his chief interest was in machin¬ 
ery. His old Ford was his dearest possession 
and he was constantly taking it apart down to 
its bare bones and patching it together again. 
A Johnson machine was his next love and we 
often used ours as a decoy to get Mr. Pete over 
on the island and then we would lead him tact¬ 
fully up to the real emergency that needed his 
shrewd observation, native wit and capable 
hand. But with all his natural gifts, Mr. Pete 
suffered the handicap of being able neither to 
read nor to write. He conducted his corre¬ 
spondence through Mrs. Dunn, who was his 
staunch friend, guardian and adviser. He had 
lived with the Dunns for a number of years 
and had made himself indispensable in the 
household. Mr. Dunn’s chief source of pride 
was his gifted and versatile boarder and to the 
boys, he was a model to be copied with sedu¬ 
lous care. Mrs. McPherson had told us that Mr. 
Pete could make odd pieces of furniture but 
after having seen him, I realized that there 
[52] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


were limits to his capacity. Jane, however, had 
not seen him. In making her memorandum 
for camp needs, while in Rome, she had put 
down: Item I. Furniture. To be made by Mr. 
Pete. Jane is an Italian enthusiast. She has 
spent several years in Italy and in Rome, last 
winter, she got an Italian Renaissance slant 
that she longed to introduce into her Canadian 
camp. 

She had artistic sketches made of benches, 
writing desks and dressing table, but the chef 
d’oeuvres were to be an Italian Renaissance li¬ 
brary table, and a screen to be covered with 
hand-blocked linen from Assisi. During the 
winter, she sent the sketches to Mr. Pete along 
with a cheque to buy the necessary lumber. 

When Jane returned from Europe, I was in 
the white heat of construction problems and so 
absorbed in roof pitch, chimney draught and 
closet space that I had not thought of furniture 
yet. Living as we were, in my partly finished 
camp, in the utter confusion of building and 
provided with only the most elemental needs, 
the department of interior decorating had not 
yet brushed my consciousness. But in the in¬ 
tervals between discussions with the carpenter, 

[53] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


of the relative merits of a straight and crooked 
angle for the windows, and the importance of 
making the doors fit the frames, I saw that 
Jane was troubled about something. One noon 
hour, while the carpenters were eating their 
bully beef sandwiches and drinking their 
strong black tea on the hillside, and Jane and 
I were lying on our blankets under the trees, 
she said musingly: 

“I can’t understand, Virginia, why Mr. Pete 
didn’t make my furniture during the winter as 
I asked him to.” 

“What furniture?” I inquired, looking past 
Jane at a cedar wax wing swinging in the tip¬ 
top of a tamarac tree. 

“Why, all my furniture,” she said, “I sent 
him sketches from Rome of Italian tables and 
benches and asked him to have them ready 
for me when I came. He did nothing of the 
kind. He kept my cheque all those months and 
returned it to me the other day.” 

“Why did he do that ?” I asked, still absorbed 
in the cedar wax wing. 

“He said he didn’t think he could make the 
furniture. He returned the sketches too. Here 
they are. Don’t you think he acted strangely ?” 

C54l 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


I looked at the sketches. One was a refec¬ 
tory table of massive proportions and original 
design. The other was a copy of a lovely mu¬ 
seum piece with carved pedestal from which 
branched four feet ending in lion’s paws. In¬ 
stead of being simple curved legs like a Dun- 
can-Pfyff, they were intricately twisted and 
turned, like a writhing serpent, delicate yet 
strong, the masterpiece of some Italian furni¬ 
ture maker of the early sixteenth century. I 
looked at the drawing and then I looked at 
Bill John, the handy man, and I was moved to 
a horrid mirth. I rolled on the ground. I 
almost rolled into the lake. 

“Jane, how could you?” I gasped. 

“Well, you told me he could make furniture 
and I see no use in making ugly things!” 

“But if he could make things like that, he 
wouldn’t be here in the wilderness, working 
ten hours a day for thirty cents an hour, mixing 
mortar and dragging lumber up the hill.” 

Jane thought a moment and then she joined 
in the mirth. “Poor little man,” she said, 
“that’s why he looks so worried everytime he 
sees me.” 

Poor little man, indeed! I thought how those 
[55] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


table legs had lain heavy on his chest all win¬ 
ter and how those claw feet must have ravaged 
his peaceful dreams. The cheque had no doubt 
been a misery to him, for he needed the money, 
but he didn’t want to get involved with those 
intricate legs. Poor Bill John, so kindly, so 
anxious to please! 

After a few minutes, Jane said meditatively, 
“Perhaps I did expect too much, but if he 
couldn’t make the tables he could at least have 
made the screen frame. You can see from the 
sketch that the design is perfectly simple.” 

I looked at the sketch. Three neat little 
panels—very simple, indeed. “Did you send 
him the dimensions, Jane?” 

“Dimensions?” Her face fell. “No, I for¬ 
got that.” 

# # # # # 

After a second short stay in New York, as a 
respite from building, I returned with a guest, 
expecting to find everything finished and in 
order in the camp. But not at all. The fron¬ 
tier Scotch are almost as procrastinating as the 
Spanish. My guest was ushered into a room 
bare of everything but a bed. There were no 
[56] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


shelves, no washstand, no table for lamp or 
toilet articles. McDonald, who was to have 
made these things in my absence had failed 
to do so and was now working temporarily on 
Jane’s cottage, leaving me only Mr. Pete, who 
was struggling along with the unfinished bath¬ 
room. 

As I have said, McDonald didn’t like Bill 
John. Why, I could never quite fathom. Bill 
John was so obliging that he was a favorite 
with everybody and I think McDonald was 
jealous of his popularity. Jane once heard him 
muttering to himself, “I never hear anything 
around here but Mr. Peet—Mr. Peet—Mr. Peet. 

As head carpenter, he gave all the unpleasant 
jobs to Mr. Pete because he said he was not a 
regular carpenter. If there was an outhouse or 
a rough back porch to build, Bill John was given 
some worthless odds and ends of lumber and 
told to do it. He always longed to be on the 
main job with the real carpenters, but he never 
complained and accepted his lot as helper with 
cheerful acquiescence. 

Finding him the only worker left at the 
camp, I put him to work at once to make tables 
and benches. He was in his element. He darted 
[57l 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


about in his faun-like way, putting up his 
bench, collecting his lumber and his tools. Un¬ 
fortunately, he needed a plane. Having none, 
he borrowed one, at my suggestion, from Mr. 
McDonald’s tool chest and set happily to work. 
He was getting on famously. We were all 
working—the guest as hard as anybody, driv¬ 
ing nails with Mr. McDonald’s hammer, to 
hang her clothes on, I using his rule to meas¬ 
ure for shelves. McDonald came in on an 
errand and surveyed the workers all busy with 
his tools which were his pride. He said noth¬ 
ing to me, but told Bill John, in passing, that 
he wanted a few words with him. 

Soon Bill John came back pale and trembling. 
“I’ll be goin’,” he said, “I don’t want to make 
trouble, I’ll just be goin’.” 

What’s the matter?” I asked. 

“McDonald’s awful mad, and he says if I 
touch the furniture, he’ll quit the job. He says 
that’s his work.” 

“But,” I said, “that’s unreasonable. He left 
me no one but you and I have to have these 
things.” 

“Well,” he said, balancing from one foot to 
the other in his wild wood way, “if I don’t go, 
Cs8] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


he will. He’s awful mad and I don’t want to 
make trouble.” 

“Wait a moment,” I said, “wait till I talk to 
Mr. McDonald.” But the efficient faun was 
gone. A moment later I heard the dip of his 
oars and he was far out on the lake making for 
the farm and Tamarac Island saw him no more 
for a season. 

I went up to Jane’s camp, which was in the 
stage of windows and doors, and asked McDon¬ 
ald why he had taken so unreasonable a po¬ 
sition. 

“I’ve put up with scab labor as long as I’ve 
a mind to,” he said. (His dignity would not 
allow him to mention the tools or the furni¬ 
ture.) “I should have left the first time Bill 
John drove a nail. If an inspector came by, 
I’d have been put square out of the union.” 

I thought how improbable an inspector’s visit 
would be to this remote wilderness but I only 
said, “I didn’t know that union rules were ob¬ 
served in the Bush. You’ve never mentioned 
it before. However, since Mr. Pete has gone 
home now for good, there is no other course 
but for you to return and finish your job your¬ 
self.” 


[59] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


This he did, somewhat acidly at first, but, 
during the week that he spent happily making 
furniture that was both useful and artistic, he 
forgot his ire against Bill John. Though he 
couldn’t achieve Renaissance pieces, McDonald 
had a real knack for making built-in desks, 
tables, odd benches and stands that were just 
the things for camp. My guest and I painted 
and stained busily, willow green, tamarac red, 
weathered oak, according to the room being 
furnished, and though we, too, were scab labor, 
no further mention of the union was made. As 
an issue, the union was dead and buried and 
nobody wanted to resurrect such an unpleasant 
spectre. When the refectory table, made of 
heavy pine, was finished, it was stained a weath¬ 
ered oak and was christened, thanks to foreign 
residence, with a gay ceremony, a libation of 
sparkling Burgundy, toasts and speeches. 

One day, a week later, I was glad to see the 
morning boat arriving with the workmen and 
Mr. Pete at the stern, running the Johnson 
motor with a beaming smile on his face. The 
painting was to start that day and McDonald, 
who had asthma, and didn’t like painting, had 

[60] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


swallowed his pride and asked Bill John to 
come back on the job. 

The camp was to be painted the red of a 
tamarac bud and the gay color went well with 
Bill John’s gay nature. 

He hopped up and down ladders like a 
squirrel, balancing himself at the most impos¬ 
sible angles. Having no real painters’ equip¬ 
ment, he resorted to all sorts of expedients for 
reaching difficult places. He tied his paint brush 
to a pole and daubed the peaks of the gable 
ends from nearby trees, and finally climbed on 
the roof and hung head downward to finish 
the white trim of the eaves. I thought he would 
have concussion of the brain and kept cloths 
saturated for instant use. But there were no 
casualties and when the job was finished, he 
folded his arms and surveyed it with pride. 

“It’s a nice color,” he said, “ ‘red.’ It makes a 

fellow feel happy.” 

# # * # # 

Getting food on the Island was one of the 
main preoccupations of the Islanders. It seemed 
impossible that so much could be consumed by 
so few. Staples came from the general cross- 
[61] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


roads store two miles away, canned goods from 
Toronto and meat was obtained here and there 
in various ways. The Stage driver brought it, if 
it came by express and he had a casual way of 
leaving it in the Sugar Bush near the boat land¬ 
ing where we sometimes found it and some¬ 
times didn’t. One night, when we were expect¬ 
ing guests, the roast was so well hidden in the 
woods that we couldn’t find a trace of it. A 
searching party was sent out from the farm and 
together we beat the bushes for half a mile up 
and down the shore, but to no avail. We longed 
for blood hounds to put them on the trail and 
somebody suggested a rabbit dog, but finally 
one of the boarders at the Farm, who was more 
familiar with Mr. Coster’s ways than we were, 
came upon the meat in a dense raspberry 
thicket, covered from every human eye by a 
large flat stone. After this, Jane didn’t trust Mr. 
Coster to deliver her roasts. She always went to 
the Post Office to fetch them herself. One hot 
August day when the hammock and a detective 
story beckoned alluringly, Jane announced that 
a roast was expected and must be met at the 
Post Office. So, reluctantly, we rowed to the 
Sugar Bush, then walked the two long hot 

[62] 



The Sugar Bush 




















TWO ON AN ISLAND 


miles, which seemed four on a sultry afternoon. 
Meat seemed a gross objective for such a steam¬ 
ing day, and I made a firm resolve to become a 
vegetarian, but only after I had eaten part of 
this roast that we were trudging the many miles 
to get. Partly compensated for my exertions by 
finding some blooming for-get-me-not plants, 
I was looking through Mrs. Betts’ trash pile for 
a discarded box to carry them in, when I saw 
Jane emerge from the Post Office with an un¬ 
usually large box under her arm. 

“It’s a big roast this time,” she said, handing 
me the letters.and papers, “and we’ll have a 
feast tomorrow. Beef with onions and fresh 
tomatoes, no more canned salmon for a 
while!” 

The box grew heavier and heavier as the 
miles lengthened, and we sat down frequently 
to rest on the return journey. 

I was sure it was the whole hind quarter of 
a calf, no less, from its size, shape and weight. 
At last, we reached the landing. The sun was 
low and the crossing was cool and restful. We 
were footsore and weary. Our backs ached, our 
muscles were strained but we were content, for 
meat was a luxury those first weeks. 

C6 3 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Home again at last! Jane opened the box 
while I was reading my mail. 

“Lovely tomatoes,” I heard her murmuring, 
“and such nice cucumbers.” Then after a pause, 
a smothered exclamation of dismay. 

“What is it?” I asked, “anything wrong with 
the roast?” 

“Come and look at it!” she said with a tragic 
gesture. 

There, in the bottom of the box in place of 
the expected roast, lay one of the largest cab¬ 
bages ever grown. It must have weighed nine 
pounds or possibly ten. Jane was speechless. 

Neither Jane nor I eat cabbage. We are not 
neutral about it. We are not even tolerant. We 
abhor the sight of it. After expressing ourselves 
forcibly about a country butcher’s idea of a sub¬ 
stitute for meat, we carried it to the lake, said 
an incantation of “Damn” three times and cast 
it in. It bobbed about waggishly for some time 
while Jane and I sat down to a supper of bread 
and cheese and thought about tomorrow’s 
menu of canned salmon and salad. But it was 
too much for our morale. Decadence had set in. 
We were no longer satisfied with canned food 
and country bacon had begun to pall on us. 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


After supper we sat down on comparatively 
empty stomachs, and composed one of the most 
appetizing telegrams ever written. This we sent 
to the nearest metropolis and two days later, we 
were dining on filets mignons, mushrooms and 
chocolate cake and taking a wicked pleasure in 
returning to the sins of the flesh. 


NEIGHBORS 


T the head of the lake was the Dunns’ 



farm. We often rowed the half mile across 
the water, beached our boats on their sandy 
shore, and before going through the farm gate, 
we passed by the pig sty where a fierce hog 
always grunted raucously and glowered at us 
from his lair. It was like biting the hand that 
fed him because he lived off our garbage which 
the workmen brought him at the close of day, 
and like the hatter’s butter, it was the best gar¬ 
bage and deserved more gratitude. 

I endured the hog with fortitude because he 
was securely enclosed, but what I could never 
get used to, were the cows loose and scattered 
all over the place. At any turn of the path, we 
might encounter from one to a dozen. All my 
life I have had a desperate fear of cows. I must 
have had some remote ancestor who was gored 
by a bull for the sight of a pair of horns fills me 
with terror. I don’t mind dehorned cows and I 
can view with serenity, the idea of being gently 


[66] 



The Fleet 

The Gull, Mary Jane, Tippy and Taxi 









TWO ON AN ISLAND 


butted to death, but to be gored or “hooked” as 
we called it in my youth, is the nightmare that 
haunts me. I always approached the farm with 
a big blue umbrella grasped tightly in my hand. 
The color was to soothe the cows and the han¬ 
dle to use in dire extremity, if I had courage 
enough not to run and vitality enough to resist. 
At the farm, as at Prestons, we were referred 
to as the “Big one and the Little one” and we 
met with a kindly welcome always. The best 
chairs were dusted for us and we rarely went 
home without cookies or buns from Mrs. 
Dunn’s well stocked larder. Sometimes with 
a finger to her lips a mysterious package was 
given us which turned out to be venison. The 
farm supplied us with every human need. It 
was the main artery of our existence and Jane’s 
artless remark to Mr. Dunn, one day, when he 
was felling trees, covered the whole case. In 
a burst of appreciation for some kindness, she 
said enthusiastically, “I declare, Mr. Dunn, I 
just don’t see how we could get along if you 
and Mrs. Dunn were to die.” 

I think Mr. Dunn appreciated the compli¬ 
ment but the observation cast a certain gloom 
over the occasion, which only lifted after we 
[67] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


had given him a strong cup of tea and a large 
piece of apple pie. 

Every morning we were roused to conscious¬ 
ness by the sound of oars; somebody arriving 
with the milk and vegetables from the farm. 
But food and human fellowship was not all the 
farm furnished. Mrs. Dunn’s knowledge of 
cookery attracted others besides the members of 
her family, and in the group which surrounded 
her, there were artizans and artists of sorts, 
specialists in mechanics, stone work, forestry, 
dredging and dynamiting. Whatever we 
needed in our building operations, it seemed, 
the Dunn’s boarding house could furnish. Not 
that these artizans carried diplomas. They had 
learned their trade in the hard school of neces¬ 
sity, but behind their work was a sincerity and 
honesty that was better than the slipshod 
methods of the union labor of our native land. 
Mr. Dunn’s specialty was cutting trees, but 
there was a ruthlessness about his method that 
had to be watched. Even on the Island, where 
growth was so dense that light could scarcely 
penetrate, which tree to cut was a subject of 
prayerful consideration with Jane and me. But 
we found that these hardy woodsmen had a 
[ 68 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


thirst for felling trees. If you took your eye off 
them for one moment, they had two trees down 
instead of one, and with a celerity and dexterity 
that made your head whirl. In my innocence of 
his tree thirsty rage, at first, I asked Mr. Dunn 
to clear a trail for me from one short point to 
another. I heard the crashing fall of timber, 
rushed to the spot and with a blood-curdling 
cry, I saved a lovely pine that had the axe at its 
throat. Mr. Dunn brought his swinging axe to 
the ground and stood in an attitude of defense 
against the wild creature who was rushing 
toward him. I apologized for the scream, ex¬ 
plaining the emergency. 

“Well,” he said, “I thought you wanted a 
straight path.” 

“Oh, no, not at all,” I cried earnestly, “I want 
to go around practically everything ” 

Mr. Dunn had no sympathy for artistic wind¬ 
ings and no doubt thought my taste for in¬ 
directness was a flaw in my character. Mr. 
Dunn was not a mental prodigy, far from it, 
but he had rock-ribbed principles which he 
would not abandon. Once he told me that he 
had an old hen that worried him a lot, she just 
“set constant” and with no eggs under her, it 
[69] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


was a great waste of time, he thought. Visions 
of my childhood in Virginia came to me and I 
made the homely suggestion that he might do 
what I had often seen the old negro mammies 
do in Virginia, that is, duck the setting hen in a 
pail of water and tie a red rag to her ankle. This 
would, for some occult reason, release her from 
the complex of setting and put her to laying 
again. But Mr. Dunn’s principles surged up 
within him. 

“No, missis,” he said, “I couldn’t do that to 
a hen. “It’s a hen’s nature to set and I couldn’t 
go against nature.” 

When he told me once that his garden was 
“poorly” because it hadn’t been “well wed,” I 
thought he was referring to the mysteries of 
pollinization till he seized a weeding tool and 
went to work. 

George Dunn’s specialty was dock building 
and bay clearing. He was fond of the girls and 
spent much time in the kitchen where Anna 
entertained him with bucolic badinage and an 
occasional tidbit. 

Old Mr. Rhodes was the best educated mem¬ 
ber of the group. I well remember the first time 
I heard his clear, deep, modulated tones. I was 
[70] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


taking my ease in bed one morning when I 
heard the sound of voices outside my window. 
Mr. Pete was talking to someone with the 
trained voice of an actor or of a public speaker, 
deep, rich quiet tones that soothed the nerves. 
They were talking about the drains for the 
house and the right place to put them. Mr. Pete 
had told me there was a good dynamiter stay¬ 
ing at Dunn’s and now he had brought him. 
Mr. Rhodes was as warmly attached to dyna¬ 
mite as Mr. Pete was to machinery. Just let a 
whisper go about the country side that a well 
was to be dug, a pit sunk or a boulder removed 
and Mr. Rhodes, whose vocation still at the age 
of seventy was felling trees, would drop every¬ 
thing and arrive with dynamite, drills and fuses 
eager to blow up something. Jane, like I, had 
her pet terrors. I admired her courageous atti¬ 
tude toward cows and she handled a row boat 
in a wind in a way to put me to shame, but she 
had streaks of timidity that from the general in¬ 
dependence of her nature seemed surprising 
and illogical. 

After her camp was finished, she would stay 
gallantly alone for nights on her end of the 
Island. Then, in another mood, she would sit 
[71] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


in my camp and shiver at the sound of the 
wind rattling a shingle, or a sighing tree scrap¬ 
ing against the roof. She would never enter her 
cottage alone after sundown. The rule was that 
I go with her and help look for lurking bur¬ 
glars. Their absence being thoroughly estab¬ 
lished, she would put her unloaded pistol in 
easy reach and retire with perfect serenity. 
Jane, by this time, had established a reputa¬ 
tion as a dare-devil shot and it had come about 
quite by accident. One day, when several of 
the working staff from the farm were on the 
Island, Jane was cautiously opening her ancient 
firearm to find out if the rust of years had 
rendered it entirely useless. She was surprised 
to have it go off suddenly in her hand. For¬ 
tunately it was not pointing upward or the 
verdict would have been “suicide with no ap¬ 
parent cause.” The sound reverberated and, 
with the echo repeated from all the cliffs 
around, it sounded like a machine gun at¬ 
tack. Everyone came running with mouths 
agape. 

There stood Jane holding the smoking pistol 
in her hand and gazing at a large hole in the 
floor. Realizing that this was no time for weak 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


confessions she rose magnificently to the occa¬ 
sion and said in an offhand way, “I’m sorry 
if I frightened anyone. It’s nothing at all. I 
was just practicing a little like we do in Texas. 
I was aiming at that knot in the floor and” she 
added triumphantly “I hit it.” The men tip¬ 
toed away shaking their heads and Jane thinks 
she has been treated with an added respect 
ever since. 

I have already spoken of Jane’s fear of fire. 
At the mere mention of dynamite, she turned 
pale. I respected this fear and always gave her 
fair warning when Mr. Rhodes was about to 
light a fuse. Jane would take to her bed and put 
a soft pillow over her ears till the mild shower 
of broken rock had gone up and come down at 
my house, two hundred and fifty feet away. In 
some way, Mr. Rhodes misplaced a small nail 
keg full of dynamite and for two weeks, search 
as we might, we couldn’t find it. 

At last it was found under the corner of 
Jane’s house, directly beneath her bed. Mr. 
Rhodes had placed it under a tree in the woods, 
but Jane’s head carpenter was a thrifty soul and, 
seeing an unattached nail keg full of something, 
he supposed it was nails, stowed it away for 
[73] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


future use and forgot it. Jane had slept peace¬ 
fully on top of it for two weeks. She aged per¬ 
ceptibly when she knew what a daring thing 
she had done. 

There were two pits to dig, one for the grease 
trap and one for the bathroom, and when that 
was done, there were boulders to be taken out 
of the bay and huge rocks to be moved from 
one place to another, so Mr. Rhodes’ rich deep 
tones were heard on the island for several 
weeks. 

Besides the wisdom of age and experience, 
he had a great deal of general information 
about geology, forestry and mechanics. He had 
a caustic wit and the sin he most abhorred was 
laziness which he thought he observed in the 
farmers’ sons about. George Dunn once had a 
severe attack of lumbago which kept him in 
bed for ten days. I asked Mr. Rhodes what he 
thought could cause lumbago in one so young. 
“I think,” he said dryly, “he has worn his back 
out lying on it.” 

One day he asked me what was my son’s 
business. 

“He is a lawyer,” I said. 

The old man looked at me with his shrewd 
[74] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


humorous glance and said, “They make a lot 
of money lying, don’t they?” 

I explained with dignity the ethics and 
poverty of the profession. Being of a legal 
family on both sides, I felt the necessity of ris¬ 
ing to the defense of the American Bar. 

Mr. Rhodes smiled and apologized in a 
courtly manner. He told me that he himself 
had wanted to study law but had no money. 
An uncle, who was a clergyman had offered to 
send him to college on the condition that he 
would go into the ministry, but a clergyman’s 
life didn’t appeal to him. He told how in mid¬ 
dle life he had taken a correspondence course 
from the Metropolitan College of New York 
and had graduated with honors. 

“Yes,” he said, “I answered ninety per cent of 
the questions they sent me but I never did get 
my diploma.” 

“How was that?” I inquired. 

“Why, Madame, they wanted me to pay three 
dollars for a wee bit of sheepskin with just my 
name on it and I wouldn’t do it. There’s graft 
in everything!” 

About this time the Dunns had a fire, always 
a terrifying thing in the Canadian woods. We 

f75f 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


could hear the roar of the flames from our 
island and in the middle of the night it looked 
like a serious conflagration. We went over early 
in the morning to see if there was anything we 
could do and found, to our relief, that it was a 
big barn and not the farm house that had 
burned to the ground. The barn was full of hay 
which of course made a tremendous fire, and 
Jimmy Dunn, who was sleeping in it, had a 
very narrow escape. The farm was almost de¬ 
serted, as the whole family had left at dawn for 
Ottawa to collect the insurance. Only Mr. 
Rhodes and Jimmy were there to guard the still 
smouldering ruins. Jimmy showed us, with 
pride, his singed forelock and thoroughly en¬ 
joyed being the hero of the occasion. 

Mr. Rhodes was gazing at the ruins with a 
pessimistic expression on his face. 

By way of being cheerful, I said, “What a 
blessing it was insured!” Mr. Rhodes shook his 
head. “They won’t get a cent, not a cent,” he 
said. 

“But why?” I asked. 

“Did you ever see the Metropolitan Building 
in New York, Madame?” 

I nodded a vague assent. 

[76] 



























































■ 


































TWO ON AN ISLAND 


“People can’t build buildings like that,” he 
said, “and pay honest claims. There’s graft in 
everything!” 

He was wrong that time. The Dunn’s re¬ 
turned happily the next day with their insur¬ 
ance money in their pockets and expressed their 
satisfaction by spending most of it on a large 
party to their friends. The barn was not rebuilt. 

There was another Herculean task that 
needed Mr. Rhodes. We had found a petrified 
tree, or rather, a section of one. It had been 
taken from the bottom of the bay because it 
scraped the boats in low water—a quarter sec¬ 
tion of some forest monster some thousand 
years ago. It would make a wonderful sun dial 
but how to get it up on the high sunny ledge 
where we were planting wild flowers and ferns ? 
Bill John was called in consultation. 

“He’s a big lad,” he said, “and mabbe he’ll 
be a mite tricky ’count of the shape of him, but 
Mr. Rhodes and I will fix him.” So with the aid 
of crow bars and a chain and two sturdy wills 
behind them, the big monolith started its jour¬ 
ney around the end of the bay and up a steep 
rock wall to the garden point. To the wall it 
seemed easy, then seven devils entered into it 
[77] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


and it refused to go up the plank walk pre¬ 
pared for it. Heave, pull, prop as they might, it 
would roll up a little way, then roll down 
again. This happened three times. With ele¬ 
mental patience they walked round and round 
it, studying its contours, trying to find the best 
grip for the chain, the best angle for the crow 
bars, then another try. With a mighty heave, 
accompanied by a cry of “There he comes,” the 
rock budged several inches. 

“Hoist him again,” called Mr. Rhodes, grip¬ 
ping the chain. Bill John s crow bar bit deep 
into the earth, he threw his weight upon it, 
both of them gave a mighty heave, but alas!— 
the crow bar slipped and with great force Bill 
John landed on his stomach on the rock. He 
righted himself instantly but looked a little 
dashed as we murmured words of sympathy 
and concern. This was the moment Mr. Rhodes 
chose to take out his pipe, light it and between 
cheerful puffs, he gave voice to the following 
inspired poem. 

“Don’t give way to foolish sorrow 
Let this keep you in good cheer 
Better days will come tomorrow 
If you only persevere.” 

[78] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


“If Bill hadn’t been such a pessimist,” he 
added, “that lad would have rolled right where 
he had to go.” 

Bill John, always the soul of cheer and de¬ 
termination, took this Scotch witticism with a 
half smile, but he stopped ruefully rubbing his 
injured part, gave his trousers a yank and ad¬ 
dressed himself doggedly to the boulder. 

“What’s the matter with ye? Ye don’t want 
to get up there, do you? Well, we’ll see. We’ll 
fix you this time, me lad.” 

Another method with the chain was tried, 
again the crow bar sunk deep, Mr. Rhodes 
pulled and Bill John with a superhuman “hist” 
rolled the boulder to the top of the wall where 
it paused an instant, lurched heavily and fell 
into the embryonic garden, burying a whole 
bed of forget-me-nots under it. I suppressed, 
but not entirely, a ladylike cry. Bill John, red 
in the face and sweating from every pore, 
looked up inquiringly. “It’s all right,” I lied, “I 
thought it was going to fall—on your foot.” 

Bill John, from the top of the wall, looked 
down at the forget-me-nots, then at his foot 
and then at me. It was a pitiful lie and he knew 
it but he was too much of a gentleman to show 
[79] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


it, so we smiled at each other in mutual under¬ 
standing, while the great rock was finally rolled 
into its place. 

We made a discovery in our bay. As the sum¬ 
mer waned, the water in the lake began to get 
lower and this caused the bay to shrink per¬ 
ceptibly, leaving a muddy beach all around it. 
This mud, we found to be loam and, as the 
water receded, this deep bed of loam was dug 
out by a force from the farm and used as the 
most excellent fertilizer for all our plants. A 
great find on a rocky island, almost devoid of 
soil. Shovelling and depositing the loam be¬ 
came one of our favorite outdoor sports. Bill 
John, Mr. Dunn and George working with big 
shovels and a wheel barrow, and Jane and I 
with our trowels depositing it around the roots 
of our transplanted wild flowers. Guests were 
expected to join in and share this diversion with 
us and if we found them lacking in enthusiasm, 
we gave them a black mark. We lost some of 
our friends during the summer but those who 
came through gallantly, would always have a 
warm welcome to Tamarac Island and a certifi¬ 
cate of graduation from raking and trowelling. 

Do] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


But the loam was not all we found in our 
bay. Under it was a stratum of gray-green clay 
which we found perfect for modelling. We 
began by making little round squat Indian jugs 
which we baked in the sun and then in the hot 
coals of the fireplace, which turned them a nice 
terra cotta. 

Glowing with the pride of a new enterprise, 
we decided to make a sun dial for the petrified 
tree trunk. The first one, in our ignorance, we 
marked with only twelve hours, placed at even 
intervals around the disk like a clock, and we 
were surprised when it registered with an abso¬ 
lute disregard of the truth. The second one was 
marked with more accuracy, for I took my seat 
beside it, with a watch, and remained the 
greater part of the day to mark the hours while 
the clay was still soft and pliable. When noon 
came, we discovered it was facing, unfortu¬ 
nately, to the south instead of to the north, so 
with a batter cake turner, two bread knives and 
a chisel, we held our breaths and turned it 
around. Then, being correctly marked, we put 
it on a large corrugated pasteboard top and thus 
eased it into the fire. It came out a lovely red¬ 
dish brown but, unfortunately, as the cardboard 
[81] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


under it burned up, it cracked through the 
middle. Not to be defeated, we gave it a good 
application of Le Page’s glue, jammed it to¬ 
gether and set it to work. 

But the autumn rains had begun. The crack 
widened and widened and finally, it fell apart. 
Like the cave man, we are learning the vicissi¬ 
tudes of the potter’s craft and we shall try again 
next summer. 


[82] 



A Mother Loon Came Close to Our Dock 
































































































































AUTUMN 


A UTUMN on Tamarac Island was a gold 
^ and copper glory. The slim birches on the 
island looked like tall white candles burning 
with a yellow flame. The shores of the main¬ 
land were lined with copper and scarlet maples. 
The air was crisp and cold and in the camp a 
big log fire burned constantly. These were the 
days that we read aloud and sewed, or took long 
tramps through the forests to some nearby lake, 
or climbed a high hill for the view. The wild 
ducks came swimming in the early morning 
around the Island with their half-grown broods, 
perching on our rocks and diving for fish in 
perfect fearlessness and abandon. They are 
never shot at, these Saw-bills, as they live on 
fish and are not palatable. But the Mallard and 
Black-head Ducks are more rarely seen as they 
know their danger and stay in the wilder parts 
of the lake. A big mother loon with her baby 
on her back came close to our dock early one 
morning, to investigate its construction. Sud- 


[83] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


denly the pump started and with a wild cry she 
dived and came up far out in the middle of the 
lake, in screaming hysterics till family relations 
were once more established with her child. The 
big Bull Frog in our bay has come to know us 
so well that he lets us come very near him and 
scratch his back with a stick. He sits all day 
under a log that we have provided for him and 
blinks and catches flies and at night he gives 
one or two hollow croaks to let us know he is 
still on guard. At first, from the strong family 
resemblance, we called him Mickleham, but we 
soon realized that it was an injustice to so 
amiable a friend and he has blinked and 
croaked to the dignified name of Col. Carter, 
ever since. He is so absent minded that he 
allows us to sit on the bottom of the bay close 
beside him and doesn’t even see us. When he 
comes out of his revery, with a galvanic move¬ 
ment, he is far away and looks surprised and 
indignant that we should have taken such a 
liberty. He has a droll way of raising his right 
forefoot to his right eye for all the world like 
a military salute and then he solemnly winks 
the left eye. He only does this for Jane and me, 
[84] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


never for an outsider, which makes us think it 
is a greeting rather than a nervous affliction. 

It was near the time of the Harvest Festival 
in the little English Church in the village, a 
pretty ceremony where sheaves of fruit, flowers 
and grain are brought to be blessed by the visit¬ 
ing Rector of the Parish. This was to be an un¬ 
usually important occasion as there were to be 
several confirmations and the Bishop of 
Ontario, himself, on his annual fishing trip in 
the region, was to be present. Some repairs 
were needed in the church and Mr. Pete with 
his usual kindness had volunteered to make 
them before the great occasion. Unfortunately, 
Mr. Pete, with all his virtues had one great 
weakness—the bottle. Pay day for him meant 
a trip to the nearest Dominion store and for a 
day or two, a period of total eclipse. When he 
emerged, his eyes were red and his speech 
fumbling but even in his cups, he was kind and 
obliging. It happened to be after one of these 
periodical lapses that he came across to the 
Island, one day, to ask if he could get a few 
pieces of lumber to finish a door of the church. 
The kind he wanted was stored under the 
[85] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


house and it required a flat abdominal crawl to 
reach it. I noticed that he was rocking slightly 
and his glance was wavering while he talked 
but, doggedly, he attacked the job on hand. 

He wriggled painfully under the low house 
and out again several times, collecting his ma¬ 
terial. From the porch where I was sitting read¬ 
ing, I watched his movement for a few minutes 
and then, all noise of collecting ceasing, I 
thought he was through and gone. But, twenty 
minutes later, passing by the side of the camp, 
I saw two heavy boots, toes downward and 
parts of two khaki-clad legs sticking out from 
under the house. They were absolutely motion¬ 
less. I was alarmed. I called. There was no 
answer. Jane and I consulted anxiously whether 
we should each take a foot and try to pull him 
out. We realized that we might catch him on a 
nail and perhaps do him great damage. Just 
then we heard a snore, a rhythmical crescendo, 
punctuated by an occasional snort. We called 
again and with much grunting and grumbling, 
Bill John began to back out from the suffocat¬ 
ing niche where sleep had overtaken him, mur¬ 
muring unconvincingly, “I can’t find that dang 
lumber nowhere.” 


[86] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Too befogged to continue his search, waver- 
ingly he started for his boat, but he couldn’t re¬ 
member where he had left it. He wandered 
around the island looking into every possible 
cove but no boat was to be found. Finally the 
prow of the Lily was discovered just visible 
above the water. The rest of her had sunk and 
was resting peacefully on the bottom of the 
lake. At no time very seaworthy, the Lily had 
not been able to bear up under the weight of a 
huge boulder which Mr. Pete had cast into her 
in his disordered state of mind to keep her from 
getting away from him. It took an hour to 
heave out this monster stone, and to bail and 
float the Lily after the Polyphemus missile was 
ejected. Mr. Pete, without the lumber for the 
church, but full of the pious zeal that brought 
him, was last seen in a state of happy intoxica¬ 
tion, weaving all over the lake and singing lus¬ 
tily a variety of songs, some religious and 
some, alas! quite otherwise. 

The days are too lovely to stay indoors. On 
one of our tramps following an old lumber 
trail, we came suddenly through a hedge of 
lilac bushes upon an old house built of stone, 
three stories high, with chimneys and cellars 
[87] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


and every evidence of intended permanence. It 
was miles away from any habitation on a high 
hill, with a commanding view and its crum¬ 
bling walls and its chimneys covered with Vir¬ 
ginia creeper told a story of some English 
pioneer, a younger son perhaps, who in early 
days came to Canada with money and a dream 
of building an estate in this lovely region. 

It was so long ago that no one knows the 
story now, but I imagine the cold defeated him; 
the long winters that start with killing frosts in 
September and last till the following May, 
when the only means of communication for 
months is by sleigh or snowshoes. 

I can imagine the great homesickness for 
England’s green fields after months and years 
of snow and ice and loneliness. 

We lingered near the melancholy old house 
for some time, saw a snake glide noiselessly into 
his hole beside the former fireside, and came 
away with roots of lilac and Virginia creeper to 
plant in memory of the high hopes of some 
courageous spirit who built a manor house in a 
wilderness. 

A similar story is revealed at the lower end of 
the lake, where there is an island called Major 
[ 88 ] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


Fulton’s Island. Here, many years ago, a retired 
English Major, his wife and two daughters, for 
some reason, buried themselves from the world. 
They built a small house hardly more than a 
shack on the mainland, and kept their chickens 
on the island safe from foxes and lynx. What¬ 
ever reverses sent them to the wilderness, it is 
evident that they tried to preserve some of the 
traditions of gentle birth. On a hill near the 
tumbled down house, with a lovely view of the 
lake, is a rustic summer house where they took 
their tea, and a green glade running along the 
shore, bordered with bracken and lime trees, 
was evidently the promenade of the old 
couple. 

A fine stone ice house and a luxuriant mint 
bed indicate that the Major took consolation for 
his exile in the cup that cheers. Let us hope he 
did. It is said that he and his wife led a solitary 
life and tried to keep their daughters from 
mingling with the native society, but youth and 
nature prevailed over prejudice, and the daugh¬ 
ters married small farmers and moved to an¬ 
other community. 

Another story of the region is of Mrs. Dunn’s 
aristocratic lineage. Her mother, of a proud 
[89] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


and ancient Scotch family, so the story goes, 
ran away with her father’s footman and came 
to Canada. Her family disowned her and 
never forgave her. She lived the hard life of 
a farmer’s wife and Mrs. Dunn tells how, on 
great occasions, her mother would take from a 
little box a few pieces of jewelry which she 
showed to her children, telling them of her 
happy childhood. 

After her mother’s death, Mrs. Dunn told us 
that this box could not be found and she believes 
that her mother sent it back to her family in 
Scotland as a last token of her loyalty and love. 
I have always been haunted by the thought that 
someone stole the box and sold its contents for 
drink. I hope I’m wrong for it is a nice story 
of a wayward daughter returning in spirit to 
the family fold. 

The autumn days were full of glory and we 
hated to leave the Island and all that it meant to 
us of freedom and simplicity, but the mornings 
were growing cold and the nights colder. The 
time had come to leave. Reluctantly we set a 
date and went through all the ceremony and 
labor of closing up. The bay must be closed 
with a heavy boom to keep out driftwood, all 
[90] 



Bottom — The Gull Bottom — Leaving 


































TWO ON AN ISLAND 


water pipes taken down, screens stored away, 
storm doors and windows put up everywhere 
and the pumps brought into the house. Mat¬ 
tresses were suspended from the beams by ropes 
to prevent field mice from gnawing holes in 
them, and the chimneys were covered over to 
keep out snow and chimney swifts. With only 
one window left open for air and one door for 
an early morning egress, we spent our last night 
in camp almost as uncomfortably as our first, 
with conditions just reversed. 

To add to our discomfort, it turned bitterly 
cold in the night and with no fire to moderate 
the temperature, we had to put on all the avail¬ 
able sweaters and coats that we had intended 
to leave behind for camp use. Muffled like 
Esquimaux, we left early in the morning in the 
Gull towing behind us the big row boat Mary 
Jane with the trunks. Mr. Pete’s car was at 
the farm waiting to take us to the station. The 
trunks were loaded in the truck and we were 
off! 

We stopped at the store to pay our bills and 
to say good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Betts who had 
done us many kindnesses during the summer. 
We lost some time there, settling accounts, and 
[91] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


realized when we started again that we had 
hardly time to catch the one daily train going 
south. George Dunn was driving, for Mr. Pete, 
the week before, had traded his “reliable 
Ford” for a secondhand Chevrolet, which he 
had taken a violent dislike to. He was at a loss 
to understand its peculiarities, but George, who 
had had a broken down “Chev” for two years, 
knew all its family tricks, which Bill John was 
trying to learn from him. He sat beside 
George, looking sad and depressed. 

“I don’t like him,” he said, indicating the 
“Chev.” “He took me over a stone wall the 
first time I went out with him, and the next 
time he threw me in a ditch. I’m afeered he’s 
not reliable.” 

George reassured him and for the first five 
miles of the journey we went very well. Then 
we heard a horn sounding repeatedly behind 
us. It got nearer and we saw a car in the dis¬ 
tance honking at every yard. 

“We might have left something,” we said, 
“but we can’t stop now or we’ll miss the train.” 

So we speeded up. The honking car did 
likewise. It became a race and the “Chev” was 
winning it. But as we approached a house, a 
C92] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


woman came running out in the road waving a 
dish towel and shouting, “They telephoned 
from the store to stop you.” 

The honking car dashed up. Mr. Betts look¬ 
ing much perturbed and holding a slip of paper 
in his hand got out and came to me in great 
excitement. What he had was an American 
Express Cheque for a good sum which he had 
cashed for me from Post Office money and 
which I, in my haste, had neglected to sign. 

Appearances were certainly against me after 
the race we had put up and Mr. Betts’ remark 
made it seem worse. 

“Youse told me that one of youse was going 
to Spain for the winter and the other one to 
Italy and I couldn’t see how I would get my 
money back unless I caught you before you 
started.” 

Profound apologies and a fountain pen 
cleared up the awkward situation and Mr. 
Betts, relieved of his anxiety, waved us a smil¬ 
ing good-bye. We started again, but the Chev, 
apparently exhausted from the race, soon began 
to boil. As there was no house anywhere for 
miles, George finally got down in the road and 
with a tin can scooped up water and mud from 
[93] 


TWO ON AN ISLAND 


a puddle, which he fed to the boiling engine. 
The Chev swallowed it, gurgling and muttering 
at the indignity, Bill John meanwhile shaking 
his head and saying, “He’s a bad lad. I don’t 
like him.” 

A half mile from the station, we stopped 
again; the engine was too hot to go on. We 
looked at our numerous bags. It would be im¬ 
possible to carry them so far. How exasperat¬ 
ing! Should we give up the race now? No! 
Another obscure puddle was found, another 
mixed dose administered and the Chevrolet 
boiled up to the station just as the train pulled 
in. The obliging conductor held it while we 
bought tickets, checked trunks and said good¬ 
bye to Mr. Pete and George. We were aboard. 
The plunging started and with a sigh we real¬ 
ized that Tamarac Island was receding into the 
distance. Our backs were turned upon the cool 
deep blue of our lake, upon the islands, gold 
and copper in the autumn haze, upon the gray 
cliffs of the western shore, growing grayer and 
more rugged with the falling of the leaves, and 
our faces were set, resolutely, towards the glare, 
the clamor and the confusion that we call civ¬ 
ilization. 


[94] 





































































JAN 2 






